Anticipation and Performance (with specific application to golf)

The nature of human performance—physical substratum and specific cognitive dynamics—is expressed through complex relationships describing the unity of mind and body. Performance dynamics cannot be characterized without accounting for underlying processes: preparation, action, relaxation, new cycles. We propose that a traditional cause-and-effect perspective of dynamics offers only a partial description of performance processes. Our focus is on the before of actions and activities, that is, on anticipation. Our approach requires improved understanding and measurement of how the living computers over performance actions or activities. Once we acknowledge the complexity of natural systems, we need the appropriate data to describe them. We explore what it takes, under conditions of uncertainty, to appropriately observe, analyze, and communicate elements of performance. We wish to make visible the integrated processes that support human performance.